


Silence Held, in Love

by MagpieMinx (CardinalFox)



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Gladio is briefly mentioned, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Other, Trauma, You want some Iggy feels? I got some Iggy feels, gender neutral reader, the major character death mentioned is Noctis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:14:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24034126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CardinalFox/pseuds/MagpieMinx
Summary: I will not let her speak because I love her, and when you love someone you do not make them tell war stories. A war story is a black space. On the one side is before and on the other side is after, and what is inside belongs only to the dead.--Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente
Relationships: Ignis Scientia/Reader, Ignis Scientia/You
Comments: 7
Kudos: 43





	Silence Held, in Love

You become conscious of the sound of the rain and the warmth of the length of bare skin pressed against your back. You reach behind yourself with gentle fingers, touch Ignis’s blanket-covered thigh, and sigh before rolling over. His face is turned away from you, but the expanse of his back and side is exposed, the blanket rucked down and around his waist and yours. His arm is stretched up towards the headboard, his forearm disappearing beneath the pillow under his head, and you can’t remember the last time you saw him this relaxed, even in sleep.

You yawn and then press yourself closer, resting your cheek against his shoulder, draping your arm around his ribs before you let your eyes drift shut again. It feels indulgent to lay here like this with him, his hair just brushing your cheek and the steady rhythm of his breath against your body, even when he’s not conscious to appreciate it. You doze, basking in the heat radiating off of Ignis, barely aware when he turns his head and sighs into the crook of his elbow. He presses lightly, instinctively, back into you and you sink deep into sleepy contentment.

The next time you wake, Ignis has shifted onto his side to face you. He’s tracing your features idly with his fingertips, drawing them gently down the side of your face, following the curve of your cheekbone. You make a nearly inaudible sound as you blink at him, and he smiles lightly as he leans in to kiss you, his hand now molded to the underside of your jaw as he gently tilts your face up towards his. The kiss is soft, a sensual pressing of lips and languid slides of tongue as Ignis pulls you closer and settles partly on top of you.

His mouth and hands are confident and sure as he presses against you with tender passion. You murmur softly as his other hand wraps around the back of your neck so that it arches just so, and then his lips travel down the exposed column of your throat. Your breathing hitches and you let out a breathless moan, and you feel him smile against your skin. His voice, when he speaks, is low and rough with sleep.  _ “To be privileged to put my arms ‘round what I value— to press my lips to what I love— to repose on what I trust-” _

“You do love sacrifice,” you interrupt, chuckling softly as you slip your arms under his and wrap them around his ribs. His skin is warm to the touch, lean muscle shifting under it, the physicality of him settling on and around you comfortingly. You tug him upwards, and he shifts to rest his forehead against yours. You stare up into the washed out, clouded grey of his eye, feel a familiar tug in your chest that happens whenever his selflessness is brought up. 

“It is, perhaps, the most glaring of my failings,” he murmurs matter-of-factly, but there’s no conviction behind this statement because it’s not exactly true. His self-sacrificing nature is at once one of his greatest strengths and one of his greatest weaknesses, and he only occasionally considers himself an expense too dear to pay. He struggles with living for himself rather than others, and while he handles it with elegant grace, it still challenges him in a way that nothing else seems to.

“You don’t have to be so quick to own your flaws,” you remind him quietly, kissing him to soften your gentle admonishment further.

“It’s my duty to hold myself responsible for-” 

“Ignis,” you interrupt a second time, and his eye narrows and his head tilts ever so slightly. You kiss him again before you say against his lips,  _ “And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.” _ His expression goes soft and a little disappointed, and you tighten your hold on his torso. He drops his face into the crook of your neck in response, and you feel his eyelashes brush against your skin as he closes his eye.

“I’m trying,” he says, and suddenly he sounds weary and dejected, his weight resting more heavily on you. You run your palm down his back, from shoulder blade to the small of his back, leave your hand resting there in the dip of his spine. There’s nothing you can say in the face of this that you haven’t said before. You don’t think he’ll ever truly let go of the need for excellence in all things, the need to push for perfection. Even in trying not to be perfect, he strives for some unattainable ideal.

“I spent so long-” he starts to say against your neck, pressing the side of his face there, and you shush him before he can slip too deep into the story that brings him so much pain. You’ve heard it before; Noctis, the Long Night, and Noctis again. The loss that shattered everything he was because Noctis was brother, son, friend, prince, and king. All his reasons for living, wrapped up in one, human body.

You lost people you cared about during the Long Night, you know what it is to be devastated. You still can’t imagine what it is to lose everything in a moment as singular as the one Ignis has experienced. Your heart aches for him, and you wrap your arms around him again, hold him tightly to your body. It’s only a matter of time until-

“I should be going,” he says, brief and flat, and you tighten your hold on him fiercely.

“You said you were going to take the day off,” you remind him, your tone sharper than you meant it to be. You try to keep your reprimands soft because Ignis is too critical of himself already and you don’t want to add to that, but it’s hard when he stubbornly insists on drowning his grief by overworking himself.

“Gladio-”

“Will be just fine,” you say firmly, and Ignis pauses as he lifts his head from the curve of your neck, his face turned in your direction. It’s like he’s looking at you, but the angle is just slightly off if you’re paying close attention. 

“You mean to keep me here as long as you can, don’t you?” he says after a moment’s silence, “At some point today, I’d still like to pop in, just to check that things are running smoothly.”

You don’t say anything, just let your iron grip around his body speak for you. He lifts one hand and his fingertips travel lightly over your face, checking your expression. He laughs, but there’s no real amusement in the sound, just the ghost of it. “You’re full of reproach today.”

After a beat of silence where you dare to loosen your hold on him so you can reach one hand up to push his hair back from his face, you say gently, “You know better. You go in to check and then everyone needs you.” You pause and then add, “You overwork yourself constantly, and it worries me.”

“You needn’t worry about me,” he says automatically, and then his cheeks flush a delicate shade of pink as he drops his head again, this time with shame. You’ve fought over this deflection a thousand times, but it’s still reflexive for him to brush you off. You’ve never questioned his capability: there is no one more capable than Ignis for anything. Your worry has nothing to do with incapability; it’s grounded in his being too capable and everyone and everything that needs him stealing him away from himself.

“I don’t worry about whether or not you can handle yourself,” you say patiently, “I worry whether or not everyone needs you to handle everything else.”

“I know,” he says apologetically, and then kisses your cheek to emphasize that he means it. You sigh and close your eyes, trying to control the urge to cry, running your fingers through his hair to buy yourself time. It’s not enough, and he surprises you a little when he tells you, “Breathe, darling. You’re holding your breath.”

Your exhale is shaky, and suddenly Ignis is conflicted. You can feel it in the way the whole of his attention turns to you and then he hesitates. He wants to shift the focus onto you, wants to take care of you, soothe your hurt and your worries, but the reason you’re hurting is because he won’t put himself first. You can hear his thoughts grinding away, weighing whether it’s counterproductive to follow his impulse or if it will only hurt you more.

You set his indecision aside by turning your face to kiss him. This kiss is soft and lingering, a warm press of lips and bodies, resting against each other. The physical sensation of it helps you ground yourself and you hope that it does something for Ignis too. It’s a relief when Ignis shifts a little more of his weight onto you, the solid pressure of him even more comforting than it usually is. He kisses you again, and then murmurs against your lips, “I’m sorry. I know I make you worry, and that’s never my intention. It’s still such a change-”

“Don’t apologize for that,” you say quickly, cutting him off as he drifts closer to dangerous territory again. His grief is like a black hole, always threatening to pull him in and then drown him in an eternity of mourning. It’s worse at times like this, when he’s supposed to give himself a rest and then ends up restless, his thoughts prowling through his mind, searching for something to fix on.

“I love you,” he tells you, the words riding a sigh as he puts his forehead against yours and closes his eye. You run fingers through Ignis’ hair, smiling gently and reveling in the silky touch of it against your hand.

“I know you do,” you respond with warmth, and then add, “I love you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Quotations are from Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, and East of Eden by John Steinbeck.
> 
> Some time ago, K was like, "You'd like Ignis." Some time later, HERE WE ARE HELLO I LOVE ME A HERO AND A TRAGEDY. I was especially struck by what the ending of FFXV would mean for Ignis because on the one hand, he's served the purpose he's spent his entire life and the ending of that was essentially delivering Noctis to his death. On the other hand, Noctis and Ignis both have multiple roles in their relationship, which I touch on briefly. It's a double, triple, quadruple trauma for Ignis to fulfill (translation: lose) his life's purpose and a person who was so many things to him. Ignis, post-game, is a full on intersection between trauma and complicated mourning, and healing is a complicated process, especially for someone as complicated as Ignis already is (and with other attendant traumas).
> 
> From a therapeutic narrative perspective, the fact that Ignis keeps telling the Reader his story over and over is heavily indicative of him still processing through the meaning of it for himself, and how that fits into his life story. The timeline for how long has passed since the final events of the game is left ambiguous here, but I suspect it would take Ignis years to fully process it all. On the flipside, telling the same story over and over again can also be retraumatizing, and isn't useful to healing! Especially during a day off, the purpose of which is for Ignis start figuring out what his new normal is.
> 
> The relationship between the Reader and Ignis is incredibly important because the Reader holds Ignis accountable for holding himself to inhuman standards, which include "getting over/being unaffected by extremely significant losses" and "adapting to new circumstances regardless of personal cost". This tendency combined with Ignis coping mechanism of working himself to the bone could potentially be very dangerous to his health. Ignis is willing to accept that cost, Reader is not, Ignis knows he should take better care of himself, Reader helps him figure out how to do that. Ignis knows that he needs what the Reader offers, even if he doesn't always enjoy it. 
> 
> There's no smut here, but there's a very physical component to the relationship because positive physical touch is grounding. Ignis already has a sensory coping mechanism through cooking, and I like to believe that in a relationship, that would eventually extend to sex.
> 
> Comments and kudos are always appreciated! I would also love to hear what your favorite line was, if you have one!  
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
